Friday, August 28, 2009

'Brides' Groom!

“There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, you can suffer for her, or you can turn her into literature” - Lawrence Durrell (1912 - 1990)

What’s the one difference between guys and girls, or men and women if you like? It’s all in a bath! Guys, we know use one all-purpose, multi-functional bar soap only per bath time. Well, if at all things have changed with the millennium bug or 21st century, there just might be two specialised soaps. We women, on the other hand use a minimum of three ‘washes’ in the space of a bath. The (very) average woman uses three cleansing agents per bath. Personally speaking, I out of a very modest lifestyle switch between four and five especially because some soaps cannot be compromised. Modus operandi follows below. DIY!

It begins with the hair. Sometimes we decide to treat our hair ‘in-house’, probably after taking out hair extensions yourself. So, we begin with (1) Shampoo which is accompanied by (2) Conditioner. The procedure moves on to (3) Facial scrub and then to (4) Body wash which could be either bath gel, cream bar or bar soap. It might (or not) interest you to know that steps (3) and (4) are not ‘marriable.’ It’s been drummed into our ears for a while now, that bar soap is a facial no-no. Then there’s (5) a ‘private’ wash for the ‘sacral region.’ This one’s not an old wives’ tale; it’s against medical advice to intermarry steps (4) and (5). We clean our feet with (6) Pedi-wash or a similar whatchamacallit, (that’s what I call it) because we don’t want to use our body sponge on our feet. The flowchart terminates with water to level them all. *Insert song by Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, “Water e no get enemy.”

It’s a loop which reiterates day and night with slight differences or additions and is also similar to the flowcharts for both body drying and applying body-lotions. I’m sure there are tens of steps I don’t even know but I can only preach what I practise. Talk about WOMEN’S GROOMING! Do grooms groom like this? We women also have the privilege and exclusive rights to use natural honey as hair conditioners, cucumbers as astringents; you know nature at our beck and call. What? Oh no, I don’t envy the guys one bit and no, Beyonce, I won’t do an “If I were a boy” duet with you. It was Simone de Beauvoir, the grandmother of feminism who said, “To be a woman, if not a defect, is at least a peculiarity,” and there’s a truth and a half in the twisted statement. If I could remove the stigma from the word, I would, but until that day I will accept the label gladly, and everything that comes with this form given me by nature: faults and flaws, vagaries and achievements. I sure love this ‘simple’ life of being a woman. I raise my glass to womenfolk. Cheers!

“It would be futile to attempt to fit women into a masculine pattern of attitudes, skills, and abilities and disastrous to force them to suppress their specifically female characteristics...by keeping up the pretense that there are no differences between the sexes.” - Arianna Huffington.Written right after a bath and still in my towel! 28/08/2009 13:15:51